On being neither Dominican nor American

Hi!

Well, February 21^st marked my six-month anniversary in the DR!! It also happens to be Independence Month (they celebrate the whole month) with the final hurrahhhh being this Thursday the 27^th. The day will be full of parades, kids dressing up in costumes and running around like locos, people whipping each other with cow bladders in the middle of the road, and drinking (of course!). It's been a fun month here, with the flag raising ceremony in the high school every day at 8am and the lowering at 4pm. I'm also one stanza closer to memorizing the Dominican National Anthem!

Here’s a recap of my last few weeks!

After spending three months creating and conducting a community diagnostic with my Dominican project partner/sister, fast forward to IST! In-service-training. My whole health sector met up for four days in a weird, sterile Catholic convent in the middle of Santo Domingo off a random highway teasingly close to where we spent five weeks in the campo for pre-service training. For four days, the volunteers and project partners sat through informational lectures about how we should plan, develop, implement and succeed with our healthy communities projects. This training came at the perfect time in my service. It was nice to reflect on the work I have already done here and plan for the implementation of my next year and a half worth of projects. Also, I got to play some kick ass icebreakers and win a scavenger hunt (my project partner is just as/more competitive than I am, we’re a perfect match!).

Highlights from the week of training:

• Finally completing the diagnostic phase of my service and making a plan for how to continue.
• Getting the resources to start an environmentally focused youth group, constructing stoves, and starting a young girls group focused on empowerment, kachow, it’s right up my alley!
• My boss asked me to help a Dominican who lives close to me start a national NGO to promote sustainability of Peace Corps projects after we/I leave our communities (Ah! This is a big project!)
• Seeing my host family from the campo! It was so nice to be reunited with Mamí, Ani and Viji even if only for a few hours one afternoon during our training. When I arrived back to El Portón, I was greeted with all the love, hugs and cariño I’ve been desperate for these past three months.There’s no one like my campo family and I will always feel best when I am with them. Especially when they make the best espagettis and tostones and gave it to me in one huge delicious heap.
• Three early morning Insanity workouts with my man Shaun T. And after the 6am workouts, we’d run to be the first in line for breakfast and heaping platefuls of pineapple and papaya.
• Eating fruits and vegetables and only the occasional piece of fried cheese.
• Creating a vision with my community partner that I am very proud of. In Spanish: “Queremos un día en el cual nuestra juventud esté completamente capacitada en salud sexual, protección del medio ambiente y en como construir un hogar sano y armónico para tener una mejor sociedad y mundo compartido.” In English: “We wish for a day in which our youth are completely trained in sexual health, protection of our environment and in how to build a healthy and harmonious home in order to create a better society and shared world.”
• Feeling proud to be where I am in my work and knowing that I have a lot left to do, but I am on the right track and now with a schedule, monetary support, and ideas galore!

So I got back to Manzanillo on a Saturday and spent the week catching up with work, applying for a grant, teaching in the local schools, and visiting a really cool monument in a town called Capotillo with a group of 100 hormonal high schoolers (Yes, thanks for asking, I did survive!). This week, I’m continuing with my youth and women’s groups, English (and more English!) classes, going shopping at the Haitian market in Dajabon, and celebrating my big 23rd birthday! And next week, I will be helping with an Escojo Mi Vida (youth group) workshop in Montecristi then it’s off to Santiago to plan an environmental youth conference called Brigada Verde, or Green Brigade. 

But this blog wouldn't be complete without some fun commemoration of my six month anniversary, so here’s a fun list or DR/America cultural comparisons.

You know you’re Dominican when:

1. You find yourself wishing the cheese on top of your nightly dose of viveres (carbohydrate dense root vegetables) were fried.
2. You join the women’s softball team and two practices later they stop meeting.
3. The first song you put on when you get to the peace and quiet of your room is bachata or dembow.
4. You find yourself scrunching your nose and wrinkling your forehead to ask, “what?”
5. Fitting seven people in a car for five doesn’t faze you.
6. You blame Haitians for everything (eugh! comes down to a serious lack of education/compassion/understanding but that's a blog post of its own)
7. You say “saludos” or “greetings” whenever you enter a crowded building, public transportation, or arrive late to a class/meeting.
8. People tell you you’re “bien aplatanada” or “banana-ed” and mean to say that you’ve become a Dominican.
9. You’ve starting greeting people you haven’t seen in a while commenting that they are fat, skinny, pale, dark, tan, ugly, pretty or any other physical/irrelevant/offensive by American standards attribute.
10. You can have an entire conversation by using non-verbal communication with your face and hands.
11. You crave white bread.

You know you’re still American when:

1. You arrive 45 minutes late because you know the meeting will start on “Dominican time” but you’re still early.
2. You crave peanut butter, nutella, spicy food, and mustard on a daily basis.
3. You eat peanut butter and bananas while people stare and question your tastes.
4. You drink coffee black, no sugar.
5. You tell people they should probably not put a pound of sugar in their gallon of juice but getting a blank look in return.
6. You still get irrationally angry that your classes get interrupted by people being late and saying “saludos” when they enter.
7. You feel the need to plan a geography lesson whenever people ask you what country of New York you’re from (America does not equal New York and New York does not equal a country).
8. You’re still offended when people call you fat after they haven’t seen you in a while.
9. The lack of education and critical thinking leaves you craving a deep conversation about anything other than weather and gossip.
10. The more time you spend in the DR positively correlates to the amount of pride you feel to be an American. 
11. You crave spinach and kale.

You know you’re neither Dominican nor American when:

1. You’ve lost the ability to speak in full English sentences without throwing in a few words of Spanish.
2. You don’t really know what to do when faced with cultural problems such as men saying women “no sirve” or “can’t do anything” or when they say “those Haitians are all liars” and realizing it’s cultural but extremely uncomfortable for you to hear and do nothing about. (Suggestions?)
3. You don’t mind taking bucket baths and cold showers but you really wish the toilet would flush on it’s own.
4. You make $300/month but can still afford to do/buy more than the majority of Dominicans. 

Well, that's it for now! Until next time. 

Sending sugared-up coffee and juice, Independence Day thoughts, and cow bladders made for whipping. 

Wishing for granola, kale, dried mangoes, and quinoa. 

Love, 

Beya 

On questions from 4th graders

Today I opened my computer to an email from an elementary school teacher of mine who let me know that her 4th graders have questions for me! How cool!!!! Kids ask the best questions. Here's my answers! Thanks for the curiosity Mrs. Salmon's 4th grade class! 

Is it a one-room school-house?

The schools here (two elementary schools and one high school) actually have a bunch of different rooms. There is one room for every grade and you enter from the outside. The bathrooms and office are also outside with lots of open windows because we don't have a lot of electricity so there are not lightbulbs that turn on, just light from outside. As a teacher, it is very frustrating because the rooms are all very loud and the kids like to talk and scream, so it's hard to be a teacher when you are always yelling over the kids. The classrooms have desks and chairs and chalkboards, but nothing fancy. 

Do all kids go to school? 

Most kids go to school, yes. Unfortunately, you need to show a birth certificate to go to high school and many of the Haitian immigrants do not have these documents so they cannot go to school past 8th grade or else they will be kicked out of the country. It's pretty sad. Also, students with disabilities do not go to school. There are no resources here for special education, so kids who should e in separate classroom to help them learn just stay at home. Also, going to school is not mandatory and many teenagers drop out after their second year at high school. There is also a very high percentage of teenage mothers (girls who get pregnant before they are 18) and the majority of them drop out of high school. 

How educated are they?

The education system here is really different, most people just copy homework from their classmates and they do not have to write essays or do much research on their own. They do a lot of copying from wikipedia too when they can find internet access. I would say that a student here who completes high school probably has the education level of an American 7th grader. Some people go to the university after high school, but most do not. Most of the older people here (65 and older) are illiterate and never made it past 5th grade. 

Are there seasons there? 

The weather almost never changes here but there is a rainy season and a dry season. The rainy season is from April to November and the dry season is from December to March. There are many hurricanes during the rainy season and many of the homes are made of wood and will be crushed in big storms. It's pretty dangerous and a lot of people are unable to leave their communities because the roads are washed out with mud (most of the roads are dirt here). In December and January, there is a nice breeze in the morning and it is about 80 degrees during the day and 65 at night. For the rest of the year, it's very hot and humid - about 90 degrees all the time and 70 at night. No one leaves their house between the hours of 12pm-2pm because it's too hot to walk around.

Any mountains above 5000 feet? 

Yes, in fact there are a few! The most famous mountain is called Pico Duarte and it is 10,164 feet. I plan to climb it in January. It's the tallest mountain in the Caribbean! There are 3 major mountain ranges and a lot of little towns are in the mountains with people living on the side of hills! The Dominican Republic is a very diverse country in terms of terrain!  

When is the sun going down right now?

The sun goes down here around 7:30pm. It will go down later in the summer (but not too much later), and earlier in winter months (even though it's not actually a change of season). We do not have Daylight Savings here either. 

What is your opinion of plantain? Wikipedia says its a kind of banana.

I have mixed feelings about plantains (platanos). I really like to fry them and make tostones, basically little small flat fried pieces of plantains that you put salt on and eat like you would french fries. Also, you can boil them and mash them into a food called mangu and eat it with fried salami or fried cheese on top. I eat it every night for dinner and I'm getting kind of sick of it, to be honest! You can also eat them boiled and cut into pieces but they taste like nothing. A lot of people boil them and mix them with spaghetti (yuck!).

Thanks for the questions, I'll look forward to more! 

On love and loss

Hello all,

I hope this post finds you well. January was a strange month. Unfortunately, three community members died in Manzanillo and I spent quite a lot of time deep in reflective conversations about love and loss. Back stateside, two friends from home and college tragically passed away, and a pseudo-brother underwent brain surgery. In the spirit of honoring those who have passed, I want to take a moment to thank each of you for the role you play in my life. I wouldn’t be where I am without you, so I am sending you gratitude, slobbery kisses, and bear hugs. I remind myself to savor the moments I spend with my neighbors, host mothers, siblings, kid-friends, and talking on the phone to you all because...well, life is precious. In reflecting, I also want to be more conscious of the service I am providing here and the ways in which I can do more for myself and others daily. 

Yesterday I found myself in the midst of what I’ve come to call “A Peace Corps Day.” A Peace Corps Day, as I have coined, is a day in which I wake up feeling like I can conquer the world, then around ten o’clock “the worst thing in the world” happens. Examples include: finding out I will have to live with my host family indefinitely because rent in Manzanillo ($80/mth) is too expensive for me to move out on my own, the hospital presentation I’ve been preparing for a week doesn’t happen because the lights go off and 75% of the women speak only Creole, the high schoolers talk during my entire sex ed class on self-esteem, my host mom gives me fried bananas for breakfast and I haven’t pooped in six days, I can’t find the lizard that crawled into my bed with me last night, etc.

The morning progresses and I’m still upset, angry and on the verge of tears. I eat a nice big lunch of rice and beans and things start shaping up. I look at my watch hoping I have time to pop into bed for a siesta, but then, I remember I have something scheduled (a meeting, an English class, a women’s group, a neighbor to visit, a presentation to prepare) and can’t get out of it. So I call a friend to vent before heading to the meeting where low and behold, my day starts shaping up again. I take charge of the meeting, plan something awesome in my youth group, teach two hard lessons in English class, meet a new doña who gives me candy and coffee, or generally just feel the sense of kicking ass coming back. I keep going about my day feeling great. I have a productive conversation with my project partner, take a walk around town and realize that my life is, in fact, amazing. I finally get to eat some mashed platanos for dinner and settle into a peaceful slumber around ten o’clock.

In twelve hours, I’ve managed to feel a ridiculous combination of happy, sad, angry, frustrated, fulfilled, satisfied, and motivated. Looking back on the entire day, it’s a net positive. It’s a Peace Corps Day. It’s a day where I feel thankful to be exactly where I am...living, breathing, serving. While I have minutes and hours where I feel so small, meek and beaten down, at the end of the day I’ve learned something. I’ll be a better person tomorrow because of the challenges I faced today (and in the Peace Corps, I’m finding myself struggling (for better and for worse) more than I ever have before). I can deal with not having water for bathing, reliable electricity or vegetables for weeks at a time because getting carried away with the small frustrations leaves me little time to think about what I really want to accomplish. Life is made of small steps, but taking too many small steps never gives us the chance to leap, bound or make strides. Much of this I have learned from the people here. 

This is a country of riches, not wealth. A country where money is only worth counting when it can be measured by the beans and rice one can buy and the coffee one can toast to her neighbors. I am in a country where the people are smiling, even on a bad day. When even though you can’t buy a bigger house or nicer phone, you always have your family and you always have enough oil to fry some plantains. And if you don’t have enough oil, you’ve got plenty of neighbors who will lend you some.

Time here is not measured or kept in minutes, but in how many chairs one can add to add to a growing group on the street and how many stories you share with friends in a long, lazy afternoon. This is a country where yelling from across the house is the only way to call someone’s attention and whispering should never be done. One can scold a friend’s child herself, or take said child for a walk, motorcycle ride, or ice cream at any time of day without warning. I can show up at a neighbors, friends, grandma’s or the mayor’s house unannounced, and if I don’t stop by at least once a day, I’m in trouble. The sum of these small parts creates a beautiful reality - one I am thankful to be living. 

As my pseudo-brother and three time brain surgery survivor wrote in a recent blog post: "May we always see this world for what it is and truly appreciate whatever we may be so fortunate to find within it."

I hope to hear from you soon, if only to know you're well. Know that I've been thinking about you all in the wake of one of the more challenging months I've been through. 

Sending all kinds of love!